{"id":3900,"date":"2026-04-26T19:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=3900"},"modified":"2026-04-26T19:38:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:38:56","slug":"subtitling-vamonos-barbara-barbara-lets-go-bartolome-1978-film-history-and-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2026\/04\/26\/subtitling-vamonos-barbara-barbara-lets-go-bartolome-1978-film-history-and-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Subtitling \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! (B\u00e1rbara, Let\u2019s Go!, Bartolom\u00e9 1978): Film History and Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today at Medi\u00e1tico we are particularly delighted to publish a post by Sally Faulkner and Eliana Maestri which characterizes the process of subtitling Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9’s <\/em>\u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! as a “feminist act of recovery” and enumerates the challenges they faced as part of a team (from the universities of Exeter, Cambridge and Kent including N\u00faria Triana-Toribio, Jara Fern\u00e1ndez-Meneses<\/a> and Rachel Beaney<\/a>) translating the 1978 Spanish film into 2023 British English subtitles. Part of a broader project, \u2018Subtitling World Cinema\u2019<\/a>,<\/em> \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! was one of several unsubtitled world cinema films taken on by the project<\/em><\/em> that had previously been inaccessible to Anglophone audiences. The subtiting of \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! was also supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant \u2018Invisibles e insumisas \/ Invis\u00edveis e insubmissas: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television, 1970-1980\u2019,<\/a> which began at the University of Exeter (2021-24) and transferred to the University of Cambridge (2024-26). Professor Sally Faulkner <\/a>is 1933 Professor of Spanish at the University of Cambridge and author of<\/em> The Cinema of Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9: Feminism and Francoism<\/a> (2024). Dr Eliana Maestri <\/a>is\u00a0Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies\u00a0and Director of the Centre for Translating Cultures, University of Exeter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subtitling<\/strong> \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara!<\/em> (B\u00e1rbara, Let\u2019s Go!<\/em>, Bartolom\u00e9 1978): Film History and Feminism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Sally Faulkner and Eliana Maestri <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, with the help of an initial grant from the University of Exeter, the authors set up a Digital Humanities project, \u2018Subtitling World Cinema\u2019 with Will Higbee, Danielle Hipkins and Ting Guo (all University of Exeter at the time) to subtitle into English examples of world cinema that were at that point inaccessible to Anglophone audiences as they had never been subtitled or dubbed. The first project was Fernando Fern\u00e1n G\u00f3mez\u2019s El mundo sigue<\/em> <\/a>(Life Goes On<\/em>) (1963 \/ 1965 \/ 2015), which although subtitled by festivals that screened it on the film\u2019s 50 year anniversary, was released on DVD without subtitles in 2015.[i]<\/a> Securing copyright from the son of the film\u2019s original producer, Juan Estelrich, we set up a team of University of Exeter MA Translation Studies students to subtitle (Matthew Burden and Rebecca Ellerker), and, with the support of Exeter\u2019s Digital Humanities team, were able to screen the film publicly in Exeter (Exeter Phoenix, 13 June 2019) and stream it on the project website<\/a>.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Sally Faulkner was researching her book The Cinema of Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9: Feminism and Francoism<\/a><\/em> (2024), she discovered that fully none of this important feminist director\u2019s work had ever been subtitled. This lack of subtitling was in fact just one example of the wider difficulties Bartolom\u00e9 faced throughout her career. Her stunning Film School work was made against the odds (Figure 1). First, the post-production of her musical-comedy short film about women\u2019s lack of access to contraception, Carmen de Carabanchel <\/em>(Carmen of Carabanchel<\/em>, 1965), was delayed by the School, then her teachers there failed it, and she had to repeat the year (Faulkner 2024, 27-36). Second, and worse still, her final-year assessment piece, Margarita y el lobo<\/a><\/em> (Margarita and the Wolf<\/em>, 1969) was passed, but then censored and banned by the Director of the Film School himself (Juan Julio Baena): its existence today is thanks to the quick thinking of producer Juan Huarte who smuggled a copy out (Calpena 2022). These two films never made it to Spanish screens, let alone international ones. Our project subtitled them, premi\u00e8red them at the Manchester HOME cinema \u00a1Viva! Spanish and Latin American film festival over 25-26 March 2023, and the Spanish Film Archives now have the subtitling files to add to their digital release of this work on their new platform Filmfo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9 at Film School<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After her Film School Margarita y el lobo<\/em> was banned, Bartolom\u00e9 was black-listed by the regime and unable to make her first feature until 1978, after Franco\u2019s death, when she was commissioned by Alfredo Matas to make a Spanish version of Martin Scorsese\u2019s Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore<\/em> <\/a>(1974). In \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara!<\/em> Bartolom\u00e9 takes the theme of marital separation and the mother-child relationship from Scorsese, but in her hands it becomes a raucous, feminist road movie-comedy that homes in on the mother-daughter relationship and ends with the emphatic rejection of a second marriage in all but name. \u2018Al fin solas\u2019 (Alone at last) Amparo Soler Leal\u2019s Ana says to daughter B\u00e1rbara (Cristina \u00c1lvarez) (Figure 2) in an echo across times and across texts from the last words of Margarita in her 1969 film, \u2018por fin sola\u2019 (Alone at last), itself an adaptation of the final words of Cristiane Rochefort\u2019s Les Stances \u00e0 Sophie<\/em> <\/a>(1963), on which it is based: \u2018Enfin seule\u2019 (Alone at last). \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara!<\/em> was released and distributed in Madrid (in a dubbed Spanish version) and Barcelona (in a dubbed Catalan version). The Catalan version was made by producer Matas without Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s consent and was the nail in the coffin of their collaboration. Once Matas had the subsidy for the Catalan version he neglected any further distribution nationally, let alone internationally (Faulkner 2024, 215-16). A film hailed as \u2018Spain\u2019s first feminist film\u2019 thus slipped into obscurity in Spain, and was never known outside Spain.[iii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: B\u00e1rbara (Cristina \u00c1lvarez) and Ana (Amparo Soler Leal) in Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subtitling \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>thus became a vital act of feminist recovery as part of the subtitling project\u2019s wider goals to give Anglophone audiences access to world cinema that was never subtitled into English. We secured copyright permission for the film\u2019s premi\u00e8re outside Spain (some 35 years after it was made) at the Manchester \u00a1Viva! Festival on 25 March 2023, followed by a screening at Exeter Phoenix cinema on 25 May 2023 (Figure 3), and have subsequenty screened it in educational contexts at the Universities of Exeter and Cambridge (Peterhouse). This blog post seeks to share our overall approach to setting up the team and establishing the feminist strategy for subtitling the film, then discusses some specific examples of the challenges of rendering the Spanish language used in a 1978 film into 2023 British English subtitles.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 3: Poster for Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978) screening at Exeter Phoenix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subtitling \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>is a collaboration: it combines Faulkner\u2019s knowledge of Spanish film history and feminism with Eliana Maestri\u2019s specialism in translation, subtitling and feminism. We worked on the project with two MA students of Translation Studies at the University of Exeter, Flor Fern\u00e1ndez and Amy Watts, whom we paid from the further grant Faulkner won to support this work: the Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant \u2018Invisibles e insumisas \/ Invis\u00edveis e insubmissas: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television, 1970-1980\u2019,<\/a> which began at the University of Exeter (2021-24) and transferred to the University of Cambridge (2024-26). In addition, co-investigator on this grant, N\u00faria Triana-Toribio (University of Kent), one of its post-doctoral research assistants, Jara Fern\u00e1ndez-Meneses (now University of Southampton) and its graduate research assistant, Rachel Beaney, helped with the processes of transcription, translation, and adaptation to standard subtitle length. We also collaborated with University of Exeter Digital Humanities colleagues on the use of software Aegisub to create the subtitle files, then added them to the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our approach to subtitling, and thus our guidance in the supervision of the students, is articulated in the subtitle of Faulkner\u2019s book \u2018feminism and Francoism\u2019. First, we understood subtitling to be a feminist act of recovery, one in which, to adapt Barbara Godard\u2019s felicitous phrase, we \u2018womanhandled\u2019 the text paying tribute to how \u2018women are writing their way into subjective agency\u2019 (1990, 22) and how translators can become well-informed and reflective participants in the production of meaning. Our feminist decisions in the subtitling include, for example, translating directly the descriptions of gender violence and post-partum physical pain, even if such directness makes the subtitles wordier (we discuss specific examples below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, with regards both Bartolom\u00e9 and her collaborators\u2019 work in the 1970s, and the work of our students today, we endeavoured to adopt a feminist ethics of \u2018care\u2019. As explained in Maestri\u2019s study on translation and\/as advocacy (2025), translation practices informed by feminist acts of care heighten the attention we pay to detail, the other and the relational aspect of the work we do. Inspired, for example, by ecofeminist Mary Phillips and her articulation of these ethics in the context of environmentalism, Maestri demonstrates how \u2018care-full\u2019 work (2025) can support not only our green citizenship but also our imagination and relational disposition to love and respect others in translation. We applied this care-imbued disposition to teach our students how to advocate for the other and the vulnerable in translation and appreciate the emotional world locked in every character with care and respect. We thus paid especial attention to the question of affect, both the affect arising from the decisions made by Bartolom\u00e9 and co-creators \u2013 especially scriptwriters and actors \u2013 in the 1970s, and the affect arising from subtitling decisions in the 2020s. For Godard, affect is one of the distinctive qualities of feminist discourse, which constitutes an \u2018\u00e9criture a deux\u2019 (Suzanne Lamy quoted in Godard 1990, 21), a mode of writing predisposed to embracing the emotional dimension of the other. While referring to the work carried out by Canadian poet and novelist Nicole Brossard, Godard stresses how important it is to make female experiences visible and known to the dominant discourse. This \u2018complex process\u2019 entails the inscription of \u2018unrecorded emotion\u2019 which \u2013 when carefully handled \u2013 undergoes \u2018a double move\u00adment of translation where the emotion is first voiced and heard, then \u201ctranslated\u201d and acted upon\u2019 (Godard 1990, 22). Co-producing subtitles was a way for us to extend this relational, and \u2018care-full\u2019 practice centred on the emotional and affective dimension of the feminine, the other and the vulnerable. Each of us heeded Godard\u2019s call to be \u2018an active participant in the creation of meaning, who advances a conditional analysis\u2019 (Godard 1990, 26).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With \u2018Francoism\u2019 we refer to the imperative to be sensitive to, and accurate with, the historical context in which the film was made, a Spain that was emerging from dictatorship. 1977, when the film was shot, and 1978, when it was released, were the years of a very particular moment of Transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain. Of course, the dictator had died (of natural causes) in 1975. Film censorship was abolished in December 1977, after the film was shot. Thus, you can see that Bartolom\u00e9 spoofs the contemporary trend of soft-porn cinema that anticipated this abolition, the destape<\/em>, for example in the amusingly unnecessary sex and nudity of the pre-credit sequence, and in Ana\u2019s balcony miopic \u2018mant\u00f3n de manila\u2019 (manila shawl) dance. Furthermore, negotiations for the new democratic constitution (finally approved in October 1978) were under way. As Ana\u2019s bed-ridden, chain-smoking and disapproving mother describes her daughter\u2019s proposed separation from her husband Carlos: \u2018El pa\u00eds, patas arriba. Hasta t\u00fa te est\u00e1s contagiando\u2019 (rendered in our subtitles as \u2018The country is upside down. Even you\u2019re getting infected by it all\u2019).[iv]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the challenges to the project was thus insisting on this deep and \u2018care-full\u2019 sensitivity to historical context. \u2018Separaci\u00f3n matrimonial\u2019 could not be rendered as \u2018divorce\u2019, as in the first draft of the subtitles, as lack of legal divorce was precisely Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s point (in the end Ana\u2019s initial request to Carlos \u2018he pensado que debemos separarnos\u2019 was colloquially rendered as \u2018I\u2019ve been thinking we should break up\u2019). Among many other things, \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>is part of the social activism that preceded the legislative act of re-legalizing divorce in 1981 (it had been legal from 1932-39 during the Second Republic [1931-39], which Franco\u2019s Nationalists overthrew by Civil war [1936-39]). More difficult to capture was Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s specific joke about the contemporary legal negotiations concerning the Transition to democracy. When, at the joyous ending of the film, mother and daughter ditch Ana\u2019s new boyfriend Iv\u00e1n (the terrible), who is proving to be \u2018husband\u2019 Carlos take two (played by Iv\u00e1n Tubau, also a writer and academic), the two have a discussion about \u2018hacer pactos\u2019. \u2018Vamos a hacer otro pacto\u2019 (\u2018We\u2019re going to make another pact\u2019) proposes B\u00e1rbara (Figure 4), to which Ana responds \u2018Ni hablar, que luego no lo cumplimos y nos cabreamos cada vez que uno lo rompe\u2019 (\u2018No way, because we won\u2019t stick to it and we get angry when the other breaks it\u2019). This triggers a gleeful \u2018Pero mam\u00e1, \u00a1los pactos est\u00e1n para romperlos! Si no, no tiene gracia\u2019 (\u2018But Mum, pacts are made to be broken! Otherwise, they\u2019re no fun!\u2019) from the girl, and a shocked look from her mother (see Figure 5). We therefore rendered \u2018hacer pactos\u2019 as \u2018making pacts\u2019, keeping the \u2018pact\u2019 of the original, rather than using the colloquially preferable \u2018deal\u2019, and thereby retaining an important link to contemporary politics for the audience. Some members of the audience may have known that the film was shot and released in the context of the legal Moncloa Pacts of 1977, Constitutional Pact of 1977-78, or wider social Pact of Forgetting, all of which were critical steps in the path to the signing of the democratic Constitution in 1978. Other members of the audience might have wondered about \u2018pact\u2019, then perhaps gone on to discover these details of the context. Sacrificing the idiomatic \u2018deal\u2019 for \u2018pact\u2019 was thus the right decision overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 4: B\u00e1rbara (Cristina \u00c1lvarez) in Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 5: B\u00e1rbara (Cristina \u00c1lvarez) and Ana (Amparo Soler Leal) in Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particular care was taken over rendering the multiple conversations between women in the film. Raw black pudding-eating Aunt Remedios, with her traditional farm \u2013 complete with aggressive dog, and broken-down plough \u2013 nestled in amongst the tourist flats of Tarragona, speaks the language of her generation. Encouraging Ana to return to Carlos, for example, she uses idiomatic phrases like \u2018Un poquito de mano izquierda, hija, en la vida hay que saber ceder\u2019, which the subtitles successfully render as \u2018Smooth things over, dear. In life one must know when to give in\u2019. These comments were layered with Aunt Remedios\u2019s other colourful expletives like \u2018\u00a1Manda cojones!\u2019, which we had as the less graphic \u2018Goodness me!\u2019, a phrase that is less colourful, but one we deemed age-appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Ana\u2019s peers are the friends from school that she meets at the beach. They vociferously complain among themselves about their husbands\u2019 lack of care in sexual relations, and over drinks at the beach bar, their conversations include idiomatic and also physically graphic details. \u2018Te buscas una puta,\u2019 one of the women reveals she has told her husband, \u2018que yo no quiero m\u00e1s barrigas\u2019, which we had as \u2018Get yourself a whore. But no more buns in the oven for me\u2019. Another understandably complains about the pain of penetrative vaginal sex post-partum, \u2018No puedes imaginarte qu\u00e9 dolores. Con la matriz descolgada! Y \u00e9l, dale que te pego\u2019. Written rather than spoken, these comments are shocking in the subtitles \u2018You can\u2019t imagine the pain. With my uterus hanging loose! And he just keeps on going!\u2019, but we felt this tone was justified to capture this history of female physical suffering after multiple childbirths. To all the complaints about the husbands like \u2018Son unos cerdos\u2019 (\u2018They\u2019re such pigs\u2019), Ana asks \u2018Y \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 demonios no los mand\u00e1is todos a tomar por el culo?\u2019. Here we felt a swear word was necessary, though, again, the impact of the written word is stronger than the spoke. Thus we had \u2018Why don\u2019t you just tell them all to fuck off, then?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The uproarious sequence on the bus, apparently based on a scene Bartolom\u00e9 herself witnessed (Faulkner 2024, 88), where a group of older women criticize their husbands\u2019 sexual behaviour (and by implication the lack of contraception in Spain in general) required careful attention. The first older woman, who describes how many children she has (or rather: had to have) \u2018Once tuve yo, y quatorce mi madre\u2019 (\u2018I had eleven [children], my mother fourteen\u2019), unleashes a diatribe against the bus driver, who, for his part, defends the men. Again, handling of phrases that carry less impact when spoken than when written had to be carefully thought through. Another woman comments \u2018que van a lo suyo, y a una, \u00a1que le parta un rayo!\u2019, which we rendered as the less dramatic \u2018They just care about themselves, not us!\u2019. When the first complainant spits out \u2018habr\u00e1 que cort\u00e1rsela\u2019 in fury, our version was \u2018they should get it [their penis] chopped off\u2019. Perhaps this translation is too dramatic as in written language the phrase is much more startling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source of most joy to the both the students and the academic supervising team was rendering the expressions and interactions between B\u00e1rbara and her mother Ana, a relationship between two generations of women that actually felicitously matched the relationship between the older female researchers of the project, and younger female student subtitlers. Thus, at the end of the film, B\u00e1rbara approvingly remarks \u2018\u00a1Mam\u00e1, eres la bomba!\u2019 (Mum, you crack me up!), and of Iv\u00e1n, \u2018\u00a1Le has dejado tirado!\u2019 (You\u2019ve left him stranded!) and \u2018Pobre. Pero, \u00a1es que era un co\u00f1azo!\u2019 (Poor guy. But he was a pain in the arse!). Ana, meanwhile, having explored her new-found independence throughout the film, speaks of the future to B\u00e1rbara thus: \u2018Pues \u00a1ag\u00e1rrate, que la [aventura] que empieza ahora promete ser cosa fina!\u2019 (\u2018Well hold tight, because [the adventure that\u2019s] starting now promises to be something else!\u2019) (Figures 6 and 7)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figures 6 and 7: B\u00e1rbara (Cristina \u00c1lvarez) and Ana (Amparo Soler Leal) in Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we perhaps need further to improve our subtitles at the start of the film, when Ana connects her decision to leave Carlos to her age, and wanting finally to live her own life, rather than giving up and slipping into middle and old age. The translation of \u2018Ya me hab\u00eda resignado a vivir como una mujer acabada, como una se\u00f1ora, vamos\u2019, given this importance of age and generational change, was therefore crucial. We chose \u2018I had already settled for living like a woman who life had finished with. Like an old lady, I mean.\u2019 While \u2018old lady\u2019 works for \u2018se\u00f1ora\u2019 in the context, we ended up spelling out \u2018mujer acabada\u2019 as a \u2018woman who life had finished with\u2019 (Figure 8) which is rather literal, wordy and not conversational. \u2018Over the hill\u2019[v]<\/a> or \u2018past it\u2019 may have been better, though both lose the specific female gendering and possible reference to the menopause that is contained in the Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 8: Ana (Amparo Soler Leal) in Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019s \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>(1978)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A final challenge was to take sensitive care of the language of the queer characters of the film, Andreu (Jos\u00e9 Lifante) and Curro (Ernesto Mart\u00edn). Andreu is a middle-class antiques dealer, a profession that may seem terribly clich\u00e9d for a gay character today, but his inclusion as a supportive friend to Ana was ground-breaking in its moment. When translating Ana\u2019s kindly meant, but rather clumsily phrased \u2018los que son como t\u00fa\u2019, we thought \u2018men who are like you\u2019 worked. However, Andreu\u2019s description of himself and the homosexual community as \u2018Nosotros somos basura\u2019 was tricky.[vi]<\/a> We wonder if the phrase we chose, \u2018We\u2019re dirtbags\u2019, is too homophobic (though Andreu is at this point condemning homophobia) and might be improved upon, perhaps using \u2018trash\u2019.[vii]<\/a> But we felt scriptwriters Bartolom\u00e9, Sara Azc\u00e1rate and Concha Romero\u2019s opted for Andreu\u2019 use of this word with negative connotations precisely to condemn homophobia. Respecting the scriptwriters\u2019 choice and Lifante\u2019s performance, and handling both with care, meant having to make this difficult choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curro, meanwhile, is a poor immigrant worker from rural Andalusia (though the description of these workers as \u2018xarnego\u2019 [in Catalan] or \u2018charnego\u2019 [in Castilian] is not used in the film) who prostitutes himself with Andreu. Iv\u00e1n\u2019s hostile attitude towards him thus may be either racist or homophobic (or both). While it was impossible to render his strong Andalusian accent in the subtitles, we took care over his brief description of his life story to Ana, including the phrase \u2018yo tengo una novia en el pueblo\u2019 (I have a girlfriend in my village). This was tricky as it took an attuned native speaker to hear the difference between \u2018novia\u2019 and \u2018novio\u2019 in his spoken, accented speech. Correcting the initial mistake of the erroneously understood \u2018novio\u2019 to \u2018novia\u2019 was absolutely critical to convey his story of poverty, internal migration and economic struggle in contemporary Spain. It also points to a wider critique that Jorge P\u00e9rez has spelled out in his discussion of the film. On the one hand, Ana and Andreu\u2019s friendship portrays a positive alliance between \u2018feminist issues\u2019 and \u2018social discrimination against gays and lesbians\u2019. On the other, \u2018the film lucidly exposes social injustices [\u2026]: while wealthy women could transform themselves on the open road, low-class homosexuals were denied access to this liberating space and remained excluded legally and socially in the early years of post-Franco Spain\u2019 (2008, 220).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, such has been the response to the public screenings of \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>so far that we are inspired to screen it further (we are currently unable to secure the copyright to stream it). For example, we were delighted to read that an anonymous member of the audience at our Manchester premi\u00e8re had taken the trouble to post a review on the International Movie Database page. The piece is titled \u2018I had already settled to live life like a woman whose life has already finished\u2019, the very phrase that posed challenges to us in the subtitling. The member of the audience writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Excited to find an obscure title was going to be shown with English Subtitles, that I could not find anywhere online [\u2026] Fleeing from everything they have been surrounded by in their lives, the writers superbly lace the Road Movie adventure that Ana and Barbara share, (which includes a sly gay subtext when the mum and daughter meet Curro) with excellent comedy detours from the new faces they both meet, as Ana decides to let her daughter find a path in life, by letting Barbara go. (Anon. 2023)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All members of the subtitling team have been lucky enough to study languages earlier in their lives and careers. For those who have not been so lucky, for those who are English speakers but do not know Spanish, we continue to be inspired to subtitle further work, so that films like \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>are no longer lost to wider film and feminist histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anon. 2023, \u2018I had already settled to live life like a woman whose life has already finished\u2019, https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0076901\/reviews\/?featured=rw9001767&ref_=tt_ururv_c_1_hd<\/a>, consulted 23 March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calpena, Ana, 2022, \u2018Entrevista a Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9\u2019, \u2018Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9 en al EOC\u2019, Filmoteca Espa\u00f1ola<\/em>. https:\/\/www.cultura.gob.es\/dam\/jcr:2853cdcb-22a8-452f-a165-c2d2d711670c\/cecilia-bartolom–en-la-eoc—flores-en-la-sombra.pdf<\/a>, consulted 23 March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camporesi, Valeria, 2001, \u2018El pa\u00eds patas arriba; hasta t\u00fa te est\u00e1s contagiando: \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara! <\/em>y la Transici\u00f3n democr\u00e1tica\u2019, in Josetxo Cerd\u00e1n and Marina D\u00edaz, eds, Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9: El encanto de la l\u00f3gica<\/em>, Madrid: Ocho y medio, 53-62.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faulkner, Sally, 2017, \u2018Delayed Cinema and Feminist Discourse in Fernando Fern\u00e1n-G\u00f3mez\u2019s El mundo sigue (1963\/1965\/2015)\u2019, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies<\/em>, 94, 8, 831-45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuentes, Gumer, 1978, \u2018Review of \u00a1V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara!<\/em>\u2019, Vindicaci\u00f3n Feminista<\/em>, 23, 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godard, Barbara, 1990, \u2018Theorizing Feminist Discourse\/Translation\u2019, in Eva C. Karpinksi and Elena Basile, eds, Translation, Semiotics, and Feminism<\/em>, London: Routledge, 19-27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maestri, Eliana, 2025, \u2018Ecotranslation, ARTvocacy and Care: A Creative Response to Climate Change Communication\u2019, Lingue e Linguaggi<\/em>, 72, 135-166.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9rez, Jorge, 2008, \u2018Spanish Women Behind the Wheel: Gendering the Transition to Democracy in V\u00e1monos, B\u00e1rbara<\/em>\u2019, Revista de Estudios Hisp\u00e1nicos<\/em>, 42, 215-36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rochefort, Cristiane, 1963, Les Stances \u00e0 Sophie<\/em>, Paris: \u00c9ditions Bernard Grasset.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[i]<\/a> The dates 1963, 1965 and 2015 are given as they are the date on which the film was made (1963), the date it received very limited distribution in Spain after being held up by censorship for two years (1965). The film was restored and re-released, including internationally, on its 50th anniversary in 2015, but the A contracorriente DVD version only included French subtitles. The film thus remained inaccessible to Anglophone audiences that could not attend its limited festival screenings in the UK. See Faulkner 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ii]<\/a> The second project was the subtitling of Door to the Sky<\/em> (Benlyazid 1989), as part of a wider project of restoration and digitization, led by Will Higbee and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The restored version of the film was premi\u00e8red at the FNF (Moroccan National Film Festival) in Tangier, March 2020. Thirdly, under the supervision of Danielle Hipkins, MA in Translation Studies graduate Laura Connolly subtitled the previously un-subtitled Italian film Ambrogio<\/em> (Labate 1992) for the Cineteca nazionale (Rome).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iii]<\/a> As Sally Faulkner discusses in The Cinema of Cecilia Bartolom\u00e9<\/em>, this phrase was used for various films by Bartolom\u00e9, but it is important that it was tentatively labelled thus by Spain\u2019s first feminist magazine, Vindicaci\u00f3n Feminista<\/em>, by the first feminist film reviewer writing in Spanish (to our knowledge), Gumer Fuentes (1978).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iv]<\/a> Valeria Camporesi takes this very phrase as the title of her article on the film (2001).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[v]<\/a> With thanks to the audience for this suggestion following a screening of the film at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, 21 March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[vi]<\/a> Jorge P\u00e9rez notes that \u2018The careful avoidance of the term \u201chomosexual\u201d [\u2026] is somewhat surprising if we take into account that by 1977 other Spanish films, such as Eloy de la Iglesia\u2019s Los placeres ocultos<\/em> (1976) had already featured openly gay characters and explicit homoeroticism\u2019 (2008, 233 n. 10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[vii]<\/a> With thanks to Katie Brown for this suggestion following a screening of the film at the University of Exeter, 6 February 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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